Posted
by
msmash
on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @05:15AM
from the resurrection dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google executives shared the stage with Xiaomi chiefs at a media event in New Delhi on Tuesday as the Chinese phone maker unveiled its "new flagship" Mi A1 smartphone. Google's presence at the event was essential. Xiaomi's Mi A1 is the latest phone to be launched under Google's Android One program, a three-year-old initiative from Google, which in the past year has been presumed dead by many. It's anything but that, Google executives said. The Xiaomi Mi A1 smartphone features a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) display. It also offers a duo of 12-megapixel rear cameras, one with telephoto capability and 2X optical zoom feature. On the front, for the selfie enthusiasts is a 5-megapixel shooter. The dual-SIM capable Mi A1 smartphone houses a Snapdragon 625 octa-core SoC, 4GB of RAM, 64GB internal storage, IR blaster, a 3080mAh battery, a fingerprint scanner, modems for 4G LTE bands in its gold- and black-coloured thin, full-metal unibody form factor. It is priced at $235, and will be available in dozens of markets including Mexico, India, Indonesia, Russia, and Singapore.

Android is for those who don't care about security. Just see the recent article about bootloaders not being secure. Add to it that Android generally has poorly designed user interfaces and the user experience is incredibly clunky. App development lags well behind the iOS versions of the same apps. If you don't care about security or having a good experience, Android is fine. For those of us who do care about those things, iOS is a far better choice.

Unfortunately this "racist" turned into an insult, vs what it really means. Like the previous generation used terrorist, or communist a generation before that.However the problem it dilutes the seriousness of these labels. Where we had people marching down the street with torches, with armed "security" to intimidate anyone who would stand up to them. Calling someone a racist because of their Phone OS preference is really diminishing the impact of the the danger that racist represent.

Racist is a term that is used by people, often themselves racist, who disagree with certain narratives.

The narrative is that black(brown, yellow, other) people cannot do certain things because of their skin color, that they actually need white people to help them, because they are incapable of doing so on their own. This narrative is found in all sorts of progressive thought. Because they(progressives) dress it up as "help", it gets a pass. And while they dress it up as "help", they aren't actually helping

Terrorists and Communists have been stable labels for over a century. Fascists that are clearly to the right of communists are to the left of socialists and left of center. These are all leftists. Conservatives are to the right. There are definite ideas behind them.

Since you can't moderate and post in the same thread, your expectation of mods giving a rebuttal are unrealistic.The parent did express a controversial one sided opinion and there are probably many people who would disagree vehemently. (Start of an iOS vs. Android fanboi war). That's probably why it was modded down.

People who are serious about security would NEVER buy a propritary device that is single-sourced from a company that is VERY aggressive about remaining the single source, and also very closed source themselves. The 'secure enclave' scheme is 100% pure 'security through obscurity'.

That emporer isn't wearing a single fucking item of clothing. Fuck Apple.

The 'secure enclave' scheme is 100% pure 'security through obscurity'.

Nonsense. The secure enclave is a separate ARM core that has its own private memory and is designed so that you can write keys to it and it will do signing and encryption / decryption on your behalf, but you can't exfiltrate the keys. A similar design appears in a few Android devices, but the lack of uniformity means that most software doesn't make good use of it. There are valid criticisms of iOS device security, but this one just makes you look like an idiot.

I realize that Apple probably has the term 'Secure Enclave' copyrighted, similar to 'Altivec Unit' and various other buzzwords from the past.

You don't "copyright" a brand name. You "trademark" it. Using "copyright" to mean "trademark" is about as bad as using "copywritten" to mean "encumbered by copyright". "Copywritten" is a word, but it refers to the state of an advertisement once its text has been created.

So anyway, Android's developer documentation [android.com] appears to refer to a similar hardware device in Android phones called a "Secure Element". Different name, same function.

So it's a separate little room, with obscure methods used to hold it's little secrets.

No. Security by obscurity means that you rely on other people not knowing the implementation details for security. This is not the case for the Apple secure element: its memory is physically inaccessible from the main core. It is not using the normal memory bus and has a simple communication channel with the main core for performing a fixed set of services. This is documented by Apple.

I realize that Apple probably has the term 'Secure Enclave' copyrighted

First, you can't copyright a term, though you could trademark it. Second, given that 'Secure Enclave' is an Intel marke

Go and re-read that story. The keys weren't exfiltrated from the enclave, they managed to acquire a copy of the firmware that had not been encrypted (which didn't impact the security at all, because Apple is using encryption for signing there, so it doesn't matter if you get the plaintext it matters if you get the private key).

And this scheme is unnecessary. You can have security without an 'enclave' too. If I don't install stupid apps on android - it is secure too.

Not true. The Linux kernel used in Android has had multiple privilege escalation vulnerabilities and the Android browser has had multiple arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities. For example, Stagefright allowed a maliciously crafted video that played in a web page to run arbitrary code with root privilege. At that point, all encryption keys and other credentials owned by any app (the mail client, IM, mobile banking) can be exfiltrated and sent to any remote network location (unless the device is using

People who are serious about security would NEVER buy a propritary device that is single-sourced from a company that is VERY aggressive about remaining the single source, and also very closed source themselves.

You mean like all of the closed source drivers in every Android phone or do you mean all Google Services that make what most people consider "Android" Android?

The iPhone 5 introduced in 2012 will have had 5 years of updates and security patches. when iOS 11 comes out in September. Can you say the sam

Apple has only had 10-20% (depending on how recent their latest device is) market share for the past couple of years. Consumers seem to have a very different idea about what they "care about" than this AC.

I happen to prefer Android as long as you have a device from a company that provides regular updates.

People keep saying that Apple only has 10~20% of the market, however those are world-wide numbers. I'm pretty sure the numbers are different for the U.S.A., Canada, Japan, France, Germany, etc. China alone probably skews the number toward Android.

So what you are saying is that 20% market share is correct, right? Sure, they may have 60% - 70% of the market in the US (we have a lot of dummies here in the US that keep buying Apple because they are used to it). But what counts for a global company is how they sell globally.

That depends entirely on the profit margins of those markets. If Apple only has 20% of the market share but 90% of the total profits in the market, I would say that the demographic they target is far more valuable than the other 80% that goes to Android.

People keep saying that Apple only has 10~20% of the market, however those are world-wide numbers. I'm pretty sure the numbers are different for the U.S.A., Canada, Japan, France, Germany, etc. China alone probably skews the number toward Android.

In the US, Android has 64.8% of the market, iOS 34%.
In Japan, Android has 58.9% of the market, iOS 48.4%.
In France, Android has 80.5% of the market, iOS 18.1%
In Germany, Android has 81.9% of the market, iOS 15.6%.
In China, Android has 80.5% of the market, iOS 19.2%

So, no, China doesn't skew the numbers that much. Europe's numbers are quite close to China's. The market share of iOS in the US is higher, but still only 34%. In Japan iOS is very popular, but still lags And

It is the Individual phone makers who don't care about security. The same problem with Windows PC's If you get a PC and put on a straight Windows install without all the PC Vendor Crap your Windows PC runs well and fairly secure for a long time. However if you just run it off of the Vendors preloaded bloat. Then you system is open to all sorts of problems.

Apple for the most part doesn't differentiate between its OS and its hardware. It is all part of the main experience. Other companies just want to sell

I don't want "secure" bootloaders, I want the ability to load whatever firmware I want on to a device.

I want both. When I install LineageOS, I want to have to reboot into a special mode and add their public key to the bootloader, and I then don't want anyone to be able to install an OS from a different vendor on the phone without completely erasing all of my data.

That may be why you'd use Android; as for the rest of us, feel free to speak for yourself (and only yourself) and you'll be far less likely to have your fragile day ruined by being shown to be a moron.;)

I shouldn't feed the trolls but...Actually, Android can be secured. There's nothing insecure about it, just the implementation of many to make things easier. Do you allow your users to download from the Google Play store or lock them down? Do you allow root access?

Iphones can also be secure, as are the ten remaining Windows phones out there.

FWIW, I switched from Android to Windows simply because of the UI. I then moved to Iphone after because I can't see going back to the Android UI.

Out of curiosity, just how secure is the bootloader on your PC? Your precious MacBook certainly isn't more secure. What's worse, you are running *entirely proprietary* technology. It doesn't get more insecure than that. Apple can do whatever it wants with literally all of your data, and you are helpless to do a thing about it. You just have to blindly trust them. That's the worst kind of security imaginable.

Agreed. Sounds like a pretty reasonably speced phone at a sensible price. Much like the Nexus line was originally. I'm still using my Nexus 4 (which runs latest android, albeit unofficial rom, perfectly well) but I'm in the market for an equivalent phone now. This could just be it.

It also offers a duo of 12-megapixel rear cameras, one with telephoto capability and 2X optical zoom feature. On the front, for the selfie enthusiasts is a 5-megapixel shooter. The dual-SIM capable Mi A1 smartphone houses a Snapdragon 625 octa-core SoC, 4GB of RAM, 64GB internal storage, IR blaster, a 3080mAh battery, a fingerprint scanner, modems for 4G LTE bands in its gold- and black-coloured thin, full-metal unibody form factor....

New flagship my ass. I see that it's not only in Brazil that brands and operators keep trying to push mid rangers and even budget phones as flagships.It's no wonder I keep seeing people getting some crappy old budget Samsung phone with an extremely outdated Android version thinking it's the latest flagship or something.

Seriously, the specs make it look about as good as most high-end phones. I assume it's got a slower CPU, but that's certainly not important for most people who don't care about games. 4G of RAM is the biggest flagship-level feature I see that will make a huge difference. I'm having a very hard time coming up with enough of a difference to justify the $415 price difference with a Pixel that only has 32GB of storage, no optical zoom, no IR, a smaller battery. What am I missing here? (Other than marketing